Review: Northanger Abbey (by Jane Austen)

My Rating: 4.5 stars

With this month being the 250^th anniversary of Jane Austen’s birth, the Austen fangirl in me of course could not pass up the opportunity to celebrate such an important milestone with an Austen-themed read-a-thon of my own (not to mention this gives me the chance to finally work my way through a few of the dozens upon dozens of Austen-related books that I’ve accumulated over the years). 

To kick off my reading celebration, I decided to start with the only novel of Austen’s that I had not yet read: Northanger Abbey.  In making this decision, the first order of business, naturally, was figuring out which version of the book I would be reading, since, like many English Literature majors who are also superfans of Austen’s works, I own several different editions of all her novels -- ultimately, I opted for the version annotated by David M. Shapard.  This is actually my first time reading a fully annotated version of a novel and I’m so glad I made this choice because it really elevated and enhanced the reading experience for me.  As the type of reader who enjoys learning about historical and other background context in my reading (especially when it comes to aspects of a story that I find interesting), an annotated version is right up my alley in that it allows me to indulge in all the nerdy delight of going down literary rabbit holes (though the downside, of course, is that it does take me longer to get through the book).

Northanger Abbey is the first of Austen’s six novels to reach fully finished, ready-for-publication form, though ironically, it was one of the last of her novels to be published, coming out together with her last complete novel Persuasion after her death.  As her first novel, Northanger Abbey can be considered Austen’s bildungsroman, or coming-of-age novel, that serves as the bridge between the juvenilia she wrote in her youth and the more intricately complex and nuanced maturity of her later works.  It is perhaps because NA was written so early in Austen’s career -- along with the fact that the novel had already been submitted for publication many years before it was actually published (she had submitted it to a publisher in 1803 who never did anything with it, so her brother bought the rights back and published the novel 14 years later, in 1817) – that it lacks some of the subtle wit and sophisticated sardonic humor of say, Pride and Prejudice (my favorite of her works).  In comparisons, the humor here is more straightforward, as Austen makes it pretty clear that she wrote this book as a parody of the “novel” – specifically the Gothic novel (or what was referred to as “sentimental novels” during that time). That said, as someone who has read and studied the form, I must say that the way Austen parodies Gothic novels in here (the focus is mostly on Ann Radcliff’s The Mysteries of Udolpho, which makes sense given that Radcliff is the “godmother” of the form) is nothing short of brilliant.  Throughout Northanger Abbey, Austen subtly compares and contrasts the heroine and hero, Catherine Morland and Henry Tilney, with the heroine and hero typically depicted in Gothic novels to produce a satiric juxtaposition that is both clever and ironic.

Speaking of the main heroine and hero – the Catherine Morland / Henry Tilney pairing is now officially my third favorite pairing in Austen’s novels (after Lizzy / Darcy at #1 and Anne / Wentworth at #2).  I honestly didn’t think I would like Catherine much at first, as I’m not a fan of naïve (aka meek, ignorant, childish, weak, etc.) characters and that had been largely how I had heard Catherine described in much of the scholarship around the novel – but after finally reading this novel myself, I’ve found that those descriptions of her don’t do her justice.  Yes, there were quite a few instances where she acts immaturely and her naivete gets the better of her (she is only 17 years old in the novel, after all, and lived a pretty sheltered life before her experiences in Bath), but what I appreciate about her character is that she grows and evolves and ultimately learns from her mistakes.  Also, she is one of the few heroines who doesn’t get “duped” by the obvious villainous suitor (the iteration in this story being John Thorpe) – one of my favorite scenes is in Chapter XIII of Volume I when Thorpe (and his annoying sister Isabella) try to force Catherine into canceling her appointment with the Tilneys through backhanded power plays, but instead of falling for it (which would be the expected reaction due to her lack of experience in “seeing through” people), she literally (and physically) defies them and runs after the Tilneys to clear things up (I actually yelled out “you go girl!!!” during that scene, lol).

Regarding Henry Tilney – let me just say that he is one of the wittiest heroes in all of Austen’s novels.  I love the fact that he can be witty and engaging and fun yet also serious and level-headed when he needs to be.  And yes, he has one of the best lines in the entire book – in response to Catherine’s assertion that men don’t read novels (because that is what John Thorpe told her when he dismissed her reading habits earlier), Henry responds with: “The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.” That response alone is enough to endear him to me forever, lol!

Lastly, I want to comment on my rating for this book.  As I mentioned in my previous reviews of Austen’s works, all her novels honestly deserve 5 stars in my book (and the reality is that I have rated all her novels as such except Mansfield Park, my least favorite of her works, which I still rated 4.5 stars).  My biggest complaint with Northanger Abbey is that the ending is super rushed and it also doesn’t address the fates of the supporting characters – specifically the “villain” characters such as the annoyingly duplicitous Thorpes – which makes the story overall a little less satisfying because for me, part of the “fun” of reading Austen is to see these characters get their comeuppance.  That doesn’t really happen in this case -- at least not to the extent that Austen does so in her later novels, which I would say is the one main blemish with this book that caused me to rate it 4.5 stars (which, of course, is still very high).

What a great way to kick off my Austen reading month!  Can’t wait to continue my immersion in the world of Austen in the coming weeks!

Review: Mansfield Park (by Jane Austen)

My Rating: 4.5 stars

 

Now that I completed my large essay for class, I can finally buckle down and catch up on my leisure reading, just in time for summer!  But first, a few catch-up reviews on books I had read over the past couple weeks, but didn’t get a chance to write about due to being too busy.

 

Those who’ve been following my reviews probably know that I’m a huge Jane Austen fan.  Since I’m studying British Literature in school, many of my classes will of course cover Austen’s works, which is why I’ve been re-reading all of her novels over the past couple years.  This time around, I re-read Mansfield Park and I will be honest in saying that I struggled quite intensely with how to rate this one (specifically, should I give it 5 stars or 4.5 stars?).

 

On the one hand, this IS my all-time favorite author Jane Austen – call me biased, but I feel like all her novels deserve 5 stars just based on the sheer complexity and nuance of her writing.  On the other hand, MP is my least favorite of Austen’s novels, and the one that actually makes me angriest whenever I read/re-read it.

 

One of the things I’ve always loved about Austen is her ironic wit – she writes with a sardonic sense of humor that renders her novels funny, but in a subtle, inimitably nuanced way.  With MP however, Austen went in a slightly different direction in that she seemed to tone down the satiric humor quite a bit, which had the effect of dialing up the overall “wretchedness” of the characters.  What I mean by this is that in most of her novels, Austen uses humor (albeit subtly) to clever balance out her characters’ follies and vices, which still achieves the ‘cautionary tale’ effect but makes the characters more tolerable and less annoying.  In other words, the mean and nasty (and generally deplorable) characters come across as less mean and nasty (and less deplorable) because the other more sensible characters in the story keep the follies of these characters in check.  Think Mr. Woodhouse in Emma (whose hypochondriac ramblings the people around him pretend to indulge, but in reality, push back upon) or Lady Catherine in P&P (who gets ‘put in her place’ by both Darcy and Elizabeth and different points in the novel).  Basically, with these characters, because they are so heavily caricatured and made fun of, their ridiculousness becomes obvious and they end up making me laugh, which also makes their unlikability less strong.

 

In MP, unlike the other novels, the nasty characters are allowed to ‘run amok’ so to speak and rarely, if ever, get put in their places.  Aunt Norris, for example, is allowed to say all sorts of nasty things to Fanny Price and no one in the Bertram family (not even Fanny’s biggest defender Edmund) ever bothers to refute her or call her out for being abusive (I’ve seen Aunt Norris often described as a ‘bully’ but I personally feel that’s sugarcoating what she truly is: an abuser through and through).  Sir Thomas and Lady Bertram are also awful, but in different ways.  While it’s true that Austen does utilize her signature wit to describe these characters in a at various points in the novel, the sarcasm is relatively mild compared to her other works.

 

And yes, like many readers, I had an issue with Edmund and Fanny as the main couple in this story, as it honestly wasn’t convincing and I honestly did not feel that Edmund was worth Fanny ‘pining’ over for the entirety of the novel.  With that said, I’m probably one of the few readers who does not ‘hate’ Fanny Price – sure, she is very different from Austen’s other heroines: she is meek, obedient, afraid to speak her mind, and self-effacing to the point of being annoying (there were multiple times where I wanted to shake her and tell her to stop putting herself down) – but when I think about the way the Bertram family treated her (subjecting her to constant verbal abuse and tamping down her confidence at every opportunity), it made perfect sense to me why Fanny’s personality turned out the way it did.  Instead of disliking Fanny, I felt sorry for her, and couldn’t help thinking that, if she had been raised under different circumstances, perhaps she would’ve turned out differently.

 

As I mentioned earlier, MP may be my least favorite of Austen’s novels, but it is still a brilliantly written one that is well-worth reading, especially for serious Austen aficionados like myself.  While definitely less charming than P&P (which was intentional on Austen’s part, as she famously thought P&P was too “bright and sparkling,” so her later novels focused on still being comedic but more serious), it’s just as thoughtfully written, with endless angles to explore that only become apparent upon re-reading.

Review: Sense and Sensibility (by Jane Austen)

My Rating:  5 stars

I know it's been awhile since I've posted a review.  This is mostly due to being busy with work and school, resulting in me falling behind on stuff.  I've definitely been continuing to read (quite a lot actually), but haven't been able to find the time to write reviews on everything I've read the past couple weeks. I'm aiming to catch up though, and hopefully I can get back to my previous consistency in terms of writing and posting about the books I've read (that's the goal at least).

So with that said, here's my first "catch-up" review.  I had mentioned a little while back ago that I'm currently taking a course on Jane Austen, which I'm elated about, as it has given me the excuse I needed to read/re-read all her works.  I finished Sense and Sensibility a few weeks ago and while this was technically a re-read for me, it was so long ago since I first read it that I honestly couldn't remember much from it.  Fortunately, as I started re-reading, things started coming back to me about the plot and the characters.  Of course, with this being Jane Austen, there's no doubt that I enjoyed reading this one — the writing was flawless as expected and the trademark wit and irony were there as well. But compared to my two all-time favorite Austen novels (Persuasion and Pride and Prejudice), one of the things that always bothered me about S&S was the dearth of likable characters (aka characters I felt like I could root for). 

While I didn't dislike Elinor and Marianne (the main heroines) per se, I also didn't really feel anything for them either.  Elinor came across as way too uptight for most of the story, plus I thought the way she was always so insistently devoted to Edward Ferrars (a man who didn't really have anything to recommend him, in my opinion) was bizarre (and frustrating). Marianne I felt was a bit too over-the-top at times with her behavior (which I know was part of the point of the story but still…) and we don't really get to see her true character come out, which I thought was a shame.  Edward was a nice guy, but as I mentioned earlier, he was kind of useless for most of the story. Colonel Brandon was probably the only one out of the main characters that I liked well enough to want to root for.  Outside of these 4 (and the villain character Willoughby), most of the other side characters were either mean, vain, selfish, arrogant, self-serving, crude, silly, stupid, or a combination thereof (Fanny Dashwood was the worst in my opinion: I'm still fuming about that conversation she has with her husband at the beginning of the novel…).

My annoyances with the characters aside, S&S is still a brilliantly written, complex novel with so many endlessly debatable topics (i.e.: the idea of each sister embodying sense versus sensibility or both attributes at once is something we could probably debate forever) — the complexity of the writing alone is well worth 5 stars.  Reading the novel in a group setting and getting the chance to analyze as well as discuss it has been wonderful, so I highly recommend that if possible. 

Review: Persuasion (by Jane Austen)

My Rating:  5 stars

I read Persuasion for the first time back in high school and it quickly became my second favorite of Jane Austen's novels.  In my past reviews, I've talked about my love for Pride and Prejudice and while that has been (and continues to be) my favorite Austen novel, Persuasion is not too far behind it.  That being said, I have actually not re-read Persuasion as often over the years as I have P&P (which I will explain why a in a bit), so when I found out I would get a chance to re-read the novel again for one of the classes I'm taking, I was ecstatic (though the "literature nerd" in me would force me to admit that part of the excitement had to do with getting to deep dive into a classic again — something I hadn't done in a long time).  While I relished the opportunity to get reacquainted with all the characters in here (I've always liked the supporting characters in this story more than the ones in P&P), I was especially looking forward to experiencing Anne Elliot and Captain Wentworth's love story again.  

For me, Persuasion has always been the most moving and most emotionally resonant of Austen's novels, and this most recent re-read only served to reinforce that fact.  Out of all of Austen's heroines, Anne Elliot is the one I find most relatable in terms of personality, comportment, feelings, thoughts, actions, and overall experiences she goes through.  Unlike the other Austen heroines, Anne is the loneliest and most isolated in that she doesn't have anyone around her who truly understands her, or who she can confide in or talk through her feelings with.  Her family (specifically her useless and vain father Sir Walter and her older sister Elizabeth) take her for granted — they never listen to what she has to say, her opinions are never regarded for anything (even though she is the most sensible one in her family), and she is pretty much treated as invisible (most of the time, Anne's father and sister don't even remember that she is in the room).  Even though she has a close relationship with Lady Russell, who is like a mother to her and advises/mentors her on all matters in a way that (usually) has her best interests in mind, at the end of the day, Lady Russell does not truly understand Anne's heart (a fact that Anne thankfully is not blind to).  While the Musgroves (her sister Mary's in-laws and family) are kind to Anne and it can even be said that they adore her (they definitely like her more than Mary), they also don't really "know" her; in a way, Anne's relationship with the Musgroves can be viewed in her "usefulness" to them — as a patient listener to their problems, as a fixer when issues arise, as a companion for her sister Mary when she gets in one of her exasperatingly whiny moods, as a caretaker for her sister's children, and as a friend who is always willing to be of help (though they are definitely more of a "family" to her than her own father and older sister). Anne's internal suffering, regret, longing, and whatever feelings she has overall about anything (especially her feelings about Wentworth) are mostly overlooked by those around her.  I resonate so deeply with Anne because so many of my experiences mirror hers (i.e.: not having anyone around who truly understands me, the feelings of loneliness and isolation, the feelings of regret and being resigned to fading into the background and finding ways to make myself useful to others,  etc).   Because of this personal connection that I feel to Anne, I'm constantly rooting for her throughout the story and of course, rejoicing with her when she finally gets her wish and is united with the man she loves in the end.

Even though I'm already familiar with the story and characters to the point that I already know what's coming, I can't help feeling a little emotional each time I re-read Persuasion — though in a way, I guess this is to be expected given that this is the most melancholic of Austen's novels as well as the one with the least amount of her signature wit and humor. This is actually one of the reasons why I don't re-read this one as often, as it admittedly leaves me feeling a bit melancholic myself afterwards (though another reason is because this was the last novel that Austen completed before she died, which always makes me a little sad when I think about it).  With that said, I also feel that this is the most beautifully written of Austen's novels — whether in its prose and language, story and character development, pacing, artistry, etc., there seems to be a level of maturity with this book that we don't see in her previous works.

Those who've never read Austen before often ask which of her novels they should start with — the most popular answer, of course, is usually Pride and Prejudice (and yes, I actually would recommend that one too).  But Persuasion is also a great choice (and it also has the advantage of being much shorter than P&P, so probably a quicker read).  Ideally though, if you are able to read both, that would be my ultimate recommendation!

P.S.: Please don't get me started on the recent Netflix adaptation of Persuasion.  All I'm going to say is that I lean more toward the "purist" camp when it comes to book adaptations, which should tell you all you need to know regarding how I felt about that particular adaptation…

Review: Emma (by Jane Austen)

My Rating:  5 stars

I've been in a nostalgic mood lately and felt compelled to revisit some of the entertainment that had given me so much joy in my youth. Back during my school days, I was always an avid reader who pretty much read everything under the sun and never had a preference for any particular author or book.  That all changed when I read Pride and Prejudice for the first time in eighth grade and fell in love with Jane Austen's unique sense of humor as well as writing style.  Up to that point, I had already read a fair share of "classic" novels, but it wasn't until I encountered Austen's work for the first time that I realized reading classics could actually be so much fun.  Austen was the first author I remember publicly declaring as a favorite (to the point that I was nicknamed "Austen fangirl" throughout junior high and high school).  While my "favorites" list has expanded to include plenty of other authors over the past three decades, Austen has remained, without a doubt, at the very top of that list (a position that I don't foresee ever changing).

So I guess it should come as no surprise that, to satisfy the nostalgic itch to re-immerse myself in Austen's world, I decided to enroll in a class about Jane Austen  that I had come across recently.  The first book we explored in class was Emma, the "comedy of manners" that happened to be one of the few Austen works that I had never read in its entirety.  Reading Emma for the first time was a delight!  Of course, it was very different from P&P (which will always be my all-time favorite Austen work), especially with its focus more on language and prose than plot.  Also, in another departure from P&P, the main characters here (including our main "heroine" Emma Woodhouse) were less likable, and could even be considered "annoying" at certain points — but yet, despite their flaws, you can't help rooting for them by the end of the story.   For me, this is one of the brilliant aspects of Austen's writing — the way she is able to make her characters memorable to the reader, even the unlikable ones.

There is so much that could be said about this book, especially in comparisons to Austen's other works. This, for me, is one of the joys of studying an author in depth and seeing how their style evolves (or doesn't) across their works.  One of the things that has always stood out to me about Austen's works is how each re-read of the same novel still manages to feel different — for example, you catch things that you might not have noticed the first go-round, or some scenes / dialogue take on a different meaning upon re-reading.  In that sense, Austen's writing is nuanced, yet not complex to the point that it it takes a lot of brainpower and deep thinking to understand what she is trying to say.  While I don't plan to re-read Emma any time soon (mostly because I have an overflowing TBR stack that I need to get through), I am looking forward to staying in Austen's world a little longer by exploring (and in some cases, actually re-reading) some of her other works in the coming weeks.